A difficult path

The new Recovering Christians blog by Jeff Yen is a good read and I was mildly surprised when he mentioned thatthe comments on one of my earlier blog posts started him down the track.

Having said that I must respectfully disagree with Jeff's remarks on the topic of christians marrying non christians.

I don't know if I can agree that love will somehow solve all problems between a couple.This is especially since I've seen for myself the ruckus that different faiths can cause in a marriage, particularly where there are children involved.

For all the possible non christians reading this, one has to state at the outset that it is true that the church and the bible frown upon marriages between non christians and christians. I doubt it is meant to belittle non christians; all the monotheistic religions have rules similiar, if not harsher than this.

I had friends who dated non christians and I've known older married couples of different faiths. I've also considered dating a non christian myself although that fizzled out for reasons other than religion. And in the end I still came to the conclusion that it just wasn't a good idea.

Putting aside the biblical directive for the moment and just looking at relationships in general, I found that most couples had to work through myriad differences already present in their personality, family culture and general attitude towards life. With religion being the sensitive and loaded topic that it is, a difference in faith usually means that a fairly large gap opens up between them right at the beginning.

There is great merit in what Jeff said about love overcoming a multitude of differences. And in most other circumstances I'd agree. But in a relationship, particularly in a marriage, the two people must be joined as one eventually. They have to share a life together, a home and a family. Any minor differences between the two in terms of family culture will be exacerbated by any gap in terms of religion. It is also difficult to see how the two lives can be joined as one when there is such a fundamental and troubling difference between the two.

There are differences that can be overcome. But in general, your religion does dictate your world view to some extent and this is probably the most difficult to overcome. The biblical directive may seem onerous, overly strict and even arbitrary to some but the truth is that there is a great deal of common sense behind it.

I'm attached to a very lovely man who, happily for me, shares a great deal of my passions and pastimes. I don't know what I'd do if he turned out to be someone who hardly ever read or shared none of my hobbies. More importantly, we have the same general outlook on life which helps in understanding each other.

Perhaps this is an overly narrow view of relationships. But it is difficult for me to comprehend how two people with great differences in,what is after all, a very fundamental part of their lives, can work out a relationship, let alone a marriage. Their marriage would be built on very shaky ground indeed and would pave the way for greater conflicts to come when children enter the picture. Issues such as which faith the child is to be brought up in can lead to major problems and as I've personally seen it happen, I don't think this is an issue that can be dismissed in an offhand manner.

Perhaps Paul's reasons for the unequally yoked rule seems harsh and arbitrary. But one has to admit it does make alot of practical sense.

So no, if one of my own friends asked me about this question, I wouldn't say the same thing Jeff did. Because I've through fire and water with my own relationships and I know how hard it can be to work out differences of any kind, much less something so tricky.

I'd ask my friend to think long and hard about it. Particularly to think about whether he/she could live with differences of that kind. Besides the spiritual aspect, I'd ask them to think about the practical ways in which it could affect their lives.

Love has a tendency to involve a certain amount of hard work and sacrifice so I'd caution anyone against dashing into a relationship that forebodes so much more pain and difficulty.